ABSTRACT
The conclusion recalls the rise of social movements in the 1970s to highlight the change in the rapports linking the state and society and how this sheds light on the social location of religion in the passage from the Nation-State to Global-Market regime. It also recalls how a holistic approach can better understand these shifts than a differentiation of social spheres approach. Four arguments are made in closing: First, that religion has been a key factor in the processes of enculturation, acculturation, legitimation, and contestation of neoliberalism and consumerism in many non-Western regions. Second, that this shift does not mean that the state and the nation are made irrelevant, but rather that they are made open to new investments, namely of the conservative and protective types, especially for the segments of the population that are globalisation’s left behind. Third, that this shift is potentially of enormous significance as it signals the exit from a vertical-transcendent form of politics and religion to a more horizontal, immanent-transcendent type. Fourth, that contextualising the rise of both the Nation-State and the market within Western history is fundamental for thinking the last century and a half, but that forthcoming changes will probably be shaped by trends originating in non-Western parts of the world.
